With the last U.S. Space Shuttle Flight … Is the (U.S.) space effort dying or evolving?

* Alan Spicer comments: With the end of the U.S. / NASA Space Shuttle Program … the final flight … It does have a gloomy outlook feeling to it for those of us that like to amateurly follow the program. There are some “Space Cadets” out here like myself that love to see the Shuttle blast off and go into space, and to know a little bit about how it does that and what things it does for the International Space Station and more. The experiments they have done and the trickle down affect that has on technology transfer to the private sector which sometimes actually makes it down to the citizens (end user products an technologies.) Amateur Radio “repeaters” around the country re-broadcast the Space Shuttle Radio Transmissions audio which keeps Ham Radio guys like me knowledgeable about the launches … and almost makes us feel a part of it. So it kind of feels like a part of us is dieing along with the program. It’s a National Pride thing as well … from the days of “We chose to go to the moon, we choose to go to the moon and do the other things, not because they are easy – but because they are hard.” through the Shuttle Programs ups and downs. There have been some National Disasters in the Program along with the National Pride … and we Americans have been there right along with it. Glued to our television screens, news reports, and radio (ham and broadcast) when we weren’t near a TV screen. Maybe we need a man like Herbert Hoover again … was the line from the old TV show (All in the Family?) Or maybe we need a Kennedy level President … or maybe we need an Enemy to Space Race with. Maybe we need a Yuri Gregarin Satellite to scare us? Or Weapons of Mass Destruction or such? Most of which turned out to be not as scary as they made them out to be – but hey they got things launched … in Space and otherwise. So here, in part, is the article:

By Alan Boyle
Pessimists are bemoaning the end of U.S. human spaceflight, but optimists see the next few years as a transition to a new paradigm that will energize commercial ventures and get astronauts beyond Earth orbit for the first time since the Nixon administration. Which way do you see it?
There seems to be plenty of gloom to go around as the space shuttle program nears its end. Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, a former member of the NASA Advisory Council and other commissions sizing up the space effort, had this to say via Twitter: “Apollo in 1969. Shuttle in 1981. Nothing in 2011. Our space program would look awesome to anyone living backwards through time.”
One of the astronauts on the first space shuttle flight in 1981, Bob Crippen, told me that he was disappointed that the shuttle program’s end would leave NASA “without the capability to put our astronauts in orbit ourselves.” And he questioned whether NASA had the right vision for future exploration. “I personally favored going to the moon,” he said.

The frustration flared up today during a House committee hearing with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden as the sole witness, or sole target. “We have waited for answers that have not come,” Science, Space and Technology Committee Chairman Ralph Hall, R-Texas, told Bolden. “We have run out of patience. … I would like to point out today that the committee reserves the right to open an investigation into these continued delays and join the investigation initiated by the Senate.”
Bolden, a retired Marine general, took the hostile fire. “You have the right guy here to criticize,” he said. “I am the leader of America’s space program.”
He laid out the main points of the post-shuttle plan:

Rely on the Russians and other partners for resupply of the International Space Station, at least until U.S. companies can finish work on the space vehicles they’re developing with NASA’s backing. The first commercial cargo craft could be flying to the station by the end of this year, and U.S.-made “space taxis” could be taking on astronauts by 2015.
Continue work on the Orion crew vehicle, which should be capable of carrying four astronauts on more ambitious trips beyond Earth orbit. Orion had been canceled as part of the Constellation back-to-the-moon program, after $5 billion had been spent on the program, but it was essentially resurrected as NASA’s “multipurpose crew vehicle,” or MPCV.
Build a new Space Launch System, or SLS, which will be based on shuttle-era and Apollo-era rocket technology. The design for the SLS has not yet been announced, which is why members of Congress are so frustrated. Bolden said it could take until the end of summer or even longer to get the SLS plan through its financial review. Congress passed a law calling for the MPCV spaceship and the SLS rocket to be ready by 2016, but Bolden said the 2017-2020 time frame was more realistic.
NASA is aiming to send astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, and to Mars and its moons by the mid-2030s. Other stopovers, ranging from the moon to gravitational balance points in outer space, may be added along the way.

“We are not abandoning human spaceflight,” Bolden said. “American leadership in space will continue for at least the next half century because we have laid the foundation for success.”
So there is an evolving plan for the future … just as there was an evolving plan for the space shuttle system in the early to mid-1970s when the Apollo program came to an end. Under the best-case scenario, that plan will lead to actual flights within four to six years, which is less time than it took between the last Saturn 5 and the first shuttle launch. But there are lots of questions surrounding the post-shuttle plan:
How much money will NASA get? A draft report from the House Appropriations Committee calls for trimming the space agency’s budget by roughly 10 percent. (For details, check Space Policy Online, Parabolic Arc and Space News.) NASA officials as well as commercial spaceship developers say that budget reductions will slow down the transition to post-shuttle spaceflight even more.
Will the commercial sector succeed? Right now, NASA is committed to paying the Russians $56 million for each seat on a station-bound Soyuz craft, and the price is due to go up in 2014. Commercial providers such as SpaceX, Sierra Nevada and the Boeing Co. say that they can beat that price, but that they need NASA’s money to help cover development costs. Shuttle program veterans say the commercial providers still have to prove that their craft will be safe and reliable.

Will the commercial sector succeed? Right now, NASA is committed to paying the Russians $56 million for each seat on a station-bound Soyuz craft, and the price is due to go up in 2014. Commercial providers such as SpaceX, Sierra Nevada and the Boeing Co. say that they can beat that price, but that they need NASA’s money to help cover development costs. Shuttle program veterans say the commercial providers still have to prove that their craft will be safe and reliable.
Will the commercial space taxis for low Earth orbit and the Orion MPCV/SLS system for going beyond Earth orbit complement each other the way NASA hopes? Larry Price, Lockheed Martin Space Systems’ deputy manager for the Orion program, told me that the two-track system served as an insurance policy for the post-shuttle space effort. “There’s a little bit of competitive pressure,” he acknowledged. “If the commercial guys run into any problem or delay for any reason, then we could back them up. And similarly, if we don’t meet our milestones, the commercial guys could evolve into our niche.”

Christopher Pike: You know I couldn’t believe it when the bartender told me who you are.
James T. Kirk: Who am I, Captain Pike?
Christopher Pike: Your father’s son.
James T. Kirk: [Turns toward the bar] Can I get another one?
Christopher Pike: For my dissertation, I was assigned the USS Kelvin. Something I admired about your Dad. He didn’t believe in no-win scenarios
James T. Kirk: Sure learned his lesson!
Christopher Pike: Well, it depends on how you define winning. You’re here aren’t you?
James T. Kirk: [as beer is brought to him] Thanks.
Christopher Pike: You know that instinct to leap without looking, that was his nature too. And in my opinion it’s something Star Fleet’s lost.
James T. Kirk: [laughing] Why are you talkin’ to me, man?
Christopher Pike: ‘Cause I looked up your file while you were drooling on the floor. Your aptitude tests are off the charts, so what is it? You like being the only genius level repeat offender in the Midwest?
James T. Kirk: Maybe I love it.
Christopher Pike: Look, so your Dad died. You can settle for a less than ordinary life. Or do you feel like you were meant for something better? Something special? Enlist in Star Fleet.
James T. Kirk: [scoffs] Enlist!
[laughing]
James T. Kirk: You guys must be way down on your recruiting quota for the month!
Christopher Pike: You know if you’re half the man your father was, Jim Star Fleet could use you. You could be an officer in four years. You could have your own ship in eight. You understand what the Federation is don’t you? It’s important. It’s a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada.
James T. Kirk: We done?
Christopher Pike: I’m done.
[Gets up]
Christopher Pike: Riverside Shipyard. Shuttle for new recruits leaves tomorrow morning 0800.
[pause]
Christopher Pike: You know your father was Captain of a Starship for 12 minutes. He saved 800 lives. Including your mother’s and yours. I dare you to do better.